Published 5:30 am, Thursday, August 30, 2007

Shelton, 53, served as president of the 1,250-student Clarendon College in the Panhandle for eight years before joining Galveston College in July. With an enrollment of about 2,200, Galveston College employs a staff of 164 that includes 76 teachers.

Shelton holds a bachelor's degree in history, a master's degree in economics and a doctorate in educational administration from Baylor University. He and Gail, his wife of 31 years, have three grown children.

Shelton, who plays piano, skis and golfs in his spare time, recently shared his thoughts with reporter Robert Stanton.

Q: What are your top priorities for Galveston College?

A: There are several issues, and they are all related to growth in some shape, form or fashion.

The college has experienced some enrollment declines over the last few years. In looking at that, we obviously want to turn the direction.

The interim president, Dr. (William) Auvenshine, made some inroads, particularly in the area of recruitment and retention. So a continuation of that effort to enhance our recruitment and to retain the students that we have is very critical.

What we need to do is to build our vocational/technical work force development programs. There's some areas that we can address and serve the community that we're not currently doing as well as we should.

We're just beginning the process of what that mix should be. We really haven't clearly identified what additional programs that we need. But on the surface of it, we're very heavily academically oriented, and we need to balance the technical programs against some of what we're doing in the academic areas.

When you start talking about retaining students, you've got to provide things for students. That gets into the renovation and expansion of our current student center. We're looking to do that.

We want to expand our student success in the number of graduates and so forth, but maintain the academic integrity and quality of the programs.

We're an open-door institution. Our goal is to take students from where they're at — wherever that is and however they come to us, whatever age — and then move them to graduation and to success.

When you talk about student life, housing is an issue for our current student population. There's an overall issue of students who perhaps would like to live closer to campus and have affordable housing, and it's just not available.

I think that housing is something that we need to investigate. There's not a clear plan on that issue, but I think it's a long-term issue that we're going to have to work on in order to grow the student population.

All of this has to be coupled with business and community partnerships — that we all work together. I don't think you can separate the college from the community. We have to partner with the community and with the businesses in the area to make all of this happen. The whole focus has to be on growing the college to serve the community.

Q: How is your tenure going so far?

A: There's been a lot to do. A lot of time has been consumed in a budgetary process, where we've had to come to grips with where the budget was, particularly in light of the governor's veto of our group health insurance benefits for both our retirees and our employees for fiscal year 2009. That's just under a million dollars for us — $943,000.

That's money that you have to think about long term ... what's going to happen and where that money's going to come back from. The lieutenant governor has called for the Legislative Budget Board to meet and (discuss) some restoration of those funds. Until that happens, you have to have a plan.

The group health insurance is just a symptom of an overall problem of lack of funding. When that happens at the state level, you push the requirement for that money back to the students and to the local taxpayers.

Q: Are there similarities between Galveston College and Clarendon College?

A: Some of the challenges are very similar. Financial issues are affecting all community colleges, large and small, particularly the small community colleges.

The challenges for enrollment growth between Clarendon and Galveston (colleges) are very similar in some respects, and very different in some respects.

What we knew about Clarendon was that the population was fairly stagnant, and to grow the population we had to make deeper penetrations into the market to get a larger percentage of students that were coming out of high school.

Plus, we needed to attract a population that the college had not attracted before. That same similarity applies to Galveston. Whatever the number of graduates is, we have to make a deeper penetration into that market.

We have to attract students, and an age difference of students that may not have been attracted before. We have to offer the right curriculum to make sure we're giving those students what they need to be successful.

Q: What are some good things you see at Galveston College?

A: The single greatest asset is the people. We've got a great faculty and staff who are committed and passionate about the college and about helping students succeed.

That passion and commitment to the students, to the mission and purposes and values of the college — that's what makes us who we are. That's the biggest asset.

Q: What are your thoughts about the college's financial situation in light of the fraud investigation under way by the Texas State Auditors Office and the Galveston County District Attorney's Office?

A: We will work with them in full cooperation to resolve this issue. It's an issue that we need resolved and put behind us so we can move forward.

From our standpoint, what's happened in the past is really in their hands.

From my standpoint, what we need to look at today is to make sure that the process and controls are in place so it doesn't happen ever again.

Q: Do you have any closing thoughts that you'd like to share?

A: Galveston College is a great college. It has had a very good and recognized historical past. It has been recognized at the state and national levels as far as accomplishments. Our goal is to build on that history and to take the college to the next level.